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South Pole Ozone Changes

What Are They Doing?

Ms. Bergholz traveled to Antarctica in 1999 as a TEA teacher to collect data on atmospheric ozone. Since then, ozone depletion and global warming have become even more urgent international concerns. Late 2007, Ms. Bergholz joined Dr. Hofmann once again at the NOAA Clean Air Facility at the South Pole Station to collect new data on atmospheric ozone, to compare with the data they collected in 1999. Ms. Bergholz and Dr. Hofmann measured the positive influences of the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer. The group collected information on atmospheric ozone (surface ozone, total ozone, and ozone profiles), carbon dioxide, and aerosols. Comparisons were made to atmospheric data in other parts of the world in order to predict the influence that the Kyoto Protocol and other clean air policies might have.

Where Are They?

The team worked from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station in Antarctica. The South Pole Station is the southernmost continually inhabited place on the planet. Its name honors Roald Amundsen who reached the South Pole in 1911 and Robert F. Scott who reached the South Pole in 1912.

Expedition Resources

Overview
This data plotting lesson compares different stratospheric ozone data collected at the South Pole in September 1969, September 1998, September 2008, January 1999, and January 2008. This ozone comparison activity allows students to make conclusions about the annual and seasonal ozone hole as well as overall ozone concentration changes over Antarctica. Students use authentic data...

## Overview
This data plotting lesson is about temperature changes throughout the atmosphere. The data was collected together with the ozone data in January 2008.
The temperature vs. altitude profile allows students to make conclusions about annual and seasonal temperature changes in the atmosphere up to about 35 kilometers in the stratosphere. The best part of this lesson is using authentic data...

Elke Bergholz was joined by NOAA atmospheric researcher, David Hofmann to discuss their research taking place at the South Pole Station, Antarctica. Due to technical difficulties, Elke was unable to join the audio portion of the call and the archive is only visual, the audio portion did not record. For audio, please access the separate attached audio file.

Journals

Meet the Team

Elke Bergholz teaches high school Biology at the United Nations International School in New York City. Over the course of her career she has taught Life Science, Physical Science, General and Honors Biology, Environmental Science, AP Biology, Biotechnology, Human Physiology, and Biology for the International Baccalaureate, an internationally accepted high school diploma. Ms. Bergholz has advised an after school river monitoring student group for several years and is a research mentor to several students completing independent biology research. Prior to teaching, Ms. Bergholz conducted research for many years in different parts of the world in marine biology, fisheries biology, and oceanography. Ms. Bergholz traveled to Antarctica in 1999 as a TEA teacher to collect data on atmospheric ozone and will return with Dr. David Hoffman to continue their studies.

David Hofmann began his career at the University of Wyoming, leading an atmospheric physics group that used large balloons to study the stratosphere. During the 1980’s his group was at the forefront of stratospheric aerosol and Antarctic ozone hole studies. In 1990 Dr. Hofmann assumed leadership of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) global greenhouse gas and ozone monitoring efforts. His group at NOAA’s Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, monitors important greenhouse gases at many sites around the world, including permanent stations in the Arctic at Barrow, Alaska, and the Antarctic at the South Pole Station.

This site is supported by the National Science Foundation under award 0956825.
Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this site are those of the PIs and coordinating team and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.